Swedish Design

September 04, 2010

This is the view from my temporary office. I have received a lot of great feedback from my last post and I guess it is a popular subject. And there are many different point-of-views out there. I want to continue on the subject and this was written on my 18 hour transpacific flight while eating a stack of home made French toast because I can’t stand airline food.

Executives are increasingly convinced that businesses are not merely offering functional devices or products to help customers to get their jobs done, but also visual imagery, customer experiences, user identity and social connectiveness. This new design consciousness is a result of many factors including the commodization of quality manufacturing, proliferation of channels, oversaturation of brands and products and rapidly changing customer expectations. Plus a heightened demand for better aesthetic experience and usability given the increasingly complex interfaces for technology products. Design has (and should) become a critical element within the strategic tool kit for new product development. But it can be useful as part of the business strategy tool kit to create growth.

A question arises here, can art also become a strategic toolkit? “Artistic Thinking” in additional to. “Design Thinking”?
How is art different from design? Design is often confused with art; some designs will eventually become art. And some art becomes design. Art is an important force shaping design and design is now becoming an important force shaping business strategy. Is there a connection between art and business? Hey, welcome to the world where everything is complicated.

Is art a state of mind or is design also a state of mind?
Art, design and business strategy are about the articulation of an idea and each has different and increasing overlapping tools to help expresses itself and for manifestation. Let’s not talk about the downstream activities of business strategy, design or art. Each one of these has its craft side and toolkit.

People are saying design is important for business today, not many people are saying art is equally important. I think art is equally important for both design and business. Wonder how many of you would agree with me?
Part of the reason design is moving upstream is because it is becoming predominant among companies and particularly marketers where the aesthetic/sensorial aspects have become key drivers in differentiation. But the meaning of design should not be reduced to a mere question of just look and appearance. Instead, design needs to be understood as something that powers the entire company. It is viewed more as an attitude that something that is linked producing new ideas from a core set of design-centered beliefs.

Can the same be said about art? Art should not be reduced to be something purely decorative or expressive with no connection (never mind influence) to business strategy. Can art be viewed as something that inspire new perspectives, new experimentation and inspirations for organizations beyond products. Is that a stretch? I am not sure.

Case in point: The Italian company Alessi is a prime example of an “artistic acting” company. Alberto Alessi, head of the company, thinks of Alessi as an applied arts research laboratory. At Alessi, design is viewed as an artistic and poetic discipline, while manufacturing conceives it as a tool for product development and marketing. The process of selecting projects to be prototyped rests with Alberto Alessi. Choices are based largely on his intuitive knowledge of what will appeal to the people. He describes his role as someone who mediates between the most interesting expressions of creativity of our times and the dreams of the consumer.

Apple can probably be classified as the same type of company where intuition is central to the company’s basic innovative processes. If you think about how Apple comes up with new products, it is definitely not a “design thinking” type of company, it is an “artistic thinking” company that relies on intuition and a heavy emphasize on personal expressions.

Someone once points out the paradox on art (the same is said about pornography, no illustrations here sorry) is that art is difficult to explain but easy to recognize. You know it only when you see it. Design is something we can see and touch, art is difficult to be identified. Over 50% of art I’ve seen I would not considered them as art, but other can have exactly the opposite point of view. That is the single biggest distinction between art and design.

And for strategy, 50% of the time you can describe a company’s business strategy by looking at what they do and what they produce or sell, the other 50% of the time you don’t know exactly where a company is going. When a great company (and its brand) touches our deep emotional state, it is only when businesses are to be viewed the same way as a painting or sculpture. They have to be looked upon as an expression of something that the artist experiences and not merely as a functional representation of a real-world product or commercial entity. If you look at companies such as Virgin, Alessi and Apple, these companies are works of art themselves.

January 23, 2010

I saw Kenya Hara’s book Designing Design in Tokyo a few months ago, but it was in Japanese so I didn’t guy it. I saw the English edition today at the Tate’s book store so I picked it up. I always wanted to read that it, now it is available in English. Kenya Hara is a Japanese graphic designer and curator or the Muji Man, he is art director of Muji since 2001. His design philosophy is putting an emphasis on “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan. I am not sure how Japan got into this minimalist thing, it is not in their history.

Lunch at the top floor of Tate Modern is probably the best place to talk about art and design. Usually a good view of London but not today. Yes they are two very different things, are they really? Design in Europe has a much longer history and tradition, and there are huge differences between how design is being used. Ever approach to branding is so different, UK branding and design firms talk of 'brand experience', expressed through retail design and interactions design and the like, their continental counterparts in Europe still focus on traditional elements of branding such as logo, packaging and corporate identity. And in the US, we’re talking about branding as business strategy.

I think British design is undergoing some form of identity crisis as structural changes are happening. A designer who manufacturers his/her designs realized that it is no longer an advantage to make things in the UK. With the emergence of China as the factory of the world, products bearing a 'made in Britain' tag are deemed expensive and of no better quality than Chinese made products, with some exception in the luxury brand goods. UK, I believe, still provides the best design education in the world. They are just a little ahead of the US and tens of years ahead of Asia, except Japan. A lot of businesses believe that if production goes abroad, you can keep R&D in the UK, let me tell you but that’s not always the case. In many case when you lose one, you often lose the other. This is a dangerous assumptions. This debate is worth a separate blog post.

What about Korea? Seoul is the 2010 World Design Capital and has one of the world's most technologically advanced infrastructures. It is ranked first on the Digital Opportunity Index and its Digital Media City is the world's first complex for high-tech technologies, a test-bed for futuristic multimedia applications. They are certainly way ahead of China but has yet to rise above the European standard.

And for China, along with an increasing consciousness of innovation (it means different things there) in Chinese industries, demand for design within Chinese companies is growing fat, as are expectations of the quality of design required. Design is not widely appreciated or understood. In the past 10 years hundred of design programs have emerged with more than 10,000 design graduates stepping into industry each year. There is a lack of opportunities and mentorship as well international exposure means it needs as least a decade before they are ready for prime time. The lag between demand and supply in design management education is becoming a major bottleneck constraining the development of the design management profession in China.

The 21st century has often been referred to as the century of design, where design drives innovation and plays a key role in assuring sustainability and creating growth for organizations, many countries are not ready for this. The west still has an advantage.

September 21, 2009

What is so special about Swedish designs? Designers love Swedish designs. Swedish design scene is now more vibrant than ever despite the size of the economy.
Take a look at the success of IKEA and H&M. Sweden's penchant for practical innovation stems in part from its geography; I imagine it is kind of a necessity when resources and materials are limited. There is one more thing in common: design for affordability.

Swedish design has a historical tradition: They didn't invent design, but they did write one of the first books on it. Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts outlines the importance of function, aesthetics, and affordability, and remains in print even though the first volume was published in 1899.
Sweden is very different from America, elitism attracts strong criticism. There is a sense of humbleness, authenticity and modesty, and the Swedish lagomhet (appraisal of modesty and humbleness). Swedes often express themselves in modest terms. Since the 19th Century, a strong urge towards more individualist values took over the more collectivist ones.

Some suggest that the high-concept design culture is rooted in the country's socialist ideology, not sure I agree with that and they said the same thing about Bauhaus. Swedes have an overarching belief in equality with deep sympathy for the underdog. This is a core element if we think about social design, or design for the bottom of the pyramid. I think this is a good design attitude to have.

Minimalism and practicality are virtues, and there is no shame in having the same couch as everyone else on the block (there is a big cultural difference). In profiling notable residences for her coffee-table book Domesticities, Pilar Viladas cited the Swedish word "lagom", which means "not too much, not too little." It is what Swedes strive for, the "yin and yang" of design.

Until the 90s, neo-modernism was predominant and Swedish design stood for traditional values like simplicity, functionality and blond wood. Remember those wooden chairs? Something happened and a new generation of young craftspeople and designers led by Zandra Ahl and Uglycute questioned the values handed down to them, and started promoting a more abrasive, less perfectionist, more human attitude to design.
They believe in a well-meaning ideology underlying the slogan “more beautiful things for everyday use,” with form dictated by function. Resulting in a new kind of democratic design, inspired by feminism and postmodernism, they pursue for designs that are able to tell users something of the historical and material culture in which we live. Design reflects our societies' value and attitude.